How YOUR Aruba Vacations Have Evolved Over The Years

How have your Aruba vacations evolved over the years?

All of us are very different, (Thank Goodness) and all of us like different things.

We change, our lives change and our needs/wants change.

In our early years visiting Aruba, we spent much time poolside, spent much time in the sun, much time in casinos, time doing tours/activities hardly any time on the beaches, lots of restaurants....all types, high end and casual..... now, we spend much time IN the ocean, much time under a palapa, much time at casual laid back restaurants and still too much time in casinos.

In just 8 short years we have already made a lot of changes. Our first visit we did all inclusive, now we know its not for us, and we have found ways to cut our food and drink costs to use that money for other adventures. Even after we made the switch away from all inclusive I never imagined us cooking in the room, but that changed too. We now make a grocery store stop and try to rent a timeshare with a full kitchen. We used to book the cheapest studio we could find, now we look more for comfort and amenities.

We added a low rise portion to the last few visits and enjoy mixing it up between beach days and our crazier Palm Beach bar crawl days. In the beginning we never rented a car, and my husband was pretty against driving. Now we are seasoned pros who like to add a jeep for a few days to do some exploring. Last year substituted a car for a jeep to save the money and decided that wasn't worth it. We used to try to pack too much into a trip, now we make sure the very first full day and very last full day are spent on the beach at our resort from morning to sunset. We also went from making reservations and having a set itinerary, to more go with the flow. I plan a lot of things and have a lot of maybes rather than must dos. We also went from booking the cheapest flight we could find, to now we book the ones that get us there earliest in the day or have a deal on first class.

Another change for us is that our night seem to get earlier and earlier. We are usually on the beach early, spend most of the week day-drinking, and after sunset and dinner, we kind of wind down. Our first night is usually a later one, and we may have one other night were we pretend to be rockstars, but for the most part we shut things down pretty early.

This is our 10th year in a row going. I know by some of you people, that is practically nothing, lol. But we went from 9 days to 36 days. Each year we stay longer. We have never stayed in a hotel there, always a private residence. We go food shopping, unpack. We mostly do the beach in the day unless its rainy, then we drive around. We are usually there for a few weeks before people we have met there arrive and then every day we visit a different beach with them and a different restaurant at nite (not always high end, pretty low end, too). When its just us, we go out and stay in maybe every 3rd nite. When we go out, we go to dinner, casino and are usually home by 10. We go for our walk in the morning at 6:30, then get our palapa at Arashi, go home and have breakfast and are back at the beach by 9 am and stay until about 4.

For us, we are acclimated to Aruba from the minute Hans picks us up at the airport...That is what I LOVE about it, we don't have to get into the rhythm

Our first 5 years or so we did AI. I loved the convenience of it. Divi ran such good sales we would use the AI for breakfast and lunch then go off resort for dinner. If we didn’t like the deserts at the restaurant then we always knew we could grab a desert or nightcap when we got back to the resort. It was the best of both worlds. What changed for us was the increase in families and the number of children whose parents were on vacation!!

We now mix it up a bit. Always spend the bulk of our time at a low rise resort. These days that would be Manchebo. Then we spend a few nights either downtown at the Renaissance Ocean Suites or in the high rise area. Last trip it was the Ritz. Makes it feel like we have two vacations.

How we spend our days hasn’t changed much. Lots of beach/ocean time with an occasional dip in the pool. Late afternoon lunch or quick bite depending on dinner plans. Casino is a must. My preference being late afternoon or early evening when it’s not as busy or smoky. Usually one day I like to spend poking in gift shops like Coscheca or Purely Aruban Art. Love it when the vendors come to the resort. For years I looked for the elusive Djucu until Andrea finally found them at LaCabana.

My feeling is what we enjoy doing doesn’t really change but often times we find we want to move on to another resort for one reason or the other.

It's always been about the beach for us........ nice dinners out...... relaxing and I go to the casino after tucking DW in. None of that has changed.... What did change for us was our move to Eagle Beach 5 years ago.... First Amsterdam Manor and then to Manchebo Beach. We moved from Palm Beach for the quiet.... minimal water sports and vendors and not a lot of kids. Manchebo offers all we are looking for!

Our length of stay has changed, longer trips with this year being the most days . We also stay overnight at the airport hotel which makes our travel day a lot nicer and more relaxing knowing we wake up and just go down to our gate. I don't overcook in the sun like previous year, guess I am getting more cautious and smarter in my old age Less casino trips would rather spend my play money on jewelry and other trinkets which I will never have too much of (lol). We try to use our airline credit card for everything back home regardless of how small or large the purchase, lucky enough to be using miles this year for our trip. I can't remember how many years we flew USAIR and listened to their credit card talk until we finally figured out it was a smart deal, especially when you first sign up for a airline cc: and get a ton of miles as a bonus.

Our length of stay has changed, longer trips with this year being the most days . We also stay overnight at the airport hotel which makes our travel day a lot nicer and more relaxing knowing we wake up and just go down to our gate. I don't overcook in the sun like previous year, guess I am getting more cautious and smarter in my old age Less casino trips would rather spend my play money on jewelry and other trinkets which I will never have too much of (lol). We try to use our airline credit card for everything back home regardless of how small or large the purchase, lucky enough to be using miles this year for our trip. I can't remember how many years we flew USAIR and listened to their credit card talk until we finally figured out it was a smart deal, especially when you first sign up for a airline cc: and get a ton of miles as a bonus.

Our first trip was with two teenage boys. It was timeshare exchange. We only rented a jeep for a few days. We went everywhere on the island and fell in love.Our next trip back was as a couple, but we had purchased a resale at the Renaissance. We started to come back on Christmas and Easter breaks for a week and rented a jeep for a full week. It always felt like "home" once we landed. We also bought an "escape" through II and stayed at the Divi Golf for our anniversary the last year I was working-I decided to use up my sick time. The year I retired, we came for two+ weeks-one at the Ren and one at LaCabana and stared our condo search and were lucky to find what we did and came back for another week for settlement. Now we own our condo and a car and are there for 3 months at a time.